BERLIN -- An Austrian student group said Tuesday it planned to challenge Facebook's privacy policies in Irish court in coming months, alleging that the social networking giant had failed, despite repeated requests and formal complaints made by its members, to adapt its privacy policy to the restrictions of European data protection law.

The group, called Europe vs. Facebook, said it would begin collecting donations to challenge Facebook's privacy policy in Ireland, where the company's European business is based. Max Schrems, an Austrian law student at the University of Vienna who organized the effort, said that Facebook has no interest in adapting its service to meet stricter European privacy requirements.

"We have been pursuing this for more than a year with Facebook, but the company has done only about 10 percent of what we had asked them to do," said Schrems, 25. "Therefore, we are preparing to go to court."

Two Facebook spokeswomen did not immediately respond to email requests for comment.

Schrems' group, which he said is made up of about 10 students at the University of Vienna, filed 22 complaints in 2010 with the Office of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, which is the European regulator responsible for Facebook.

As a result of those complaints, the regulator conducted a public audit of Facebook's privacy policies. In September it announced an agreement with the company that, among other changes, required Facebook to shorten how long it retains consumer data, and to refrain from building a photo archive on individuals without their prior consent.

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But Schrems, in an interview, said Facebook was still violating European law in many areas, including a requirement that Facebook provide users upon request with a full copy of all the data the company has collected on them. Schrems, a Facebook user since 2007, said he requested his own summary file from Facebook in 2010.

The Menlo Park company responded by creating a self-service tool for users to extract the data, which Schrems said only supplied him with information going back to 2010. In addition, Facebook's privacy policy, which users are required to agree to before they can use the service, is too broad and violates European law, he alleged.

Thilo Weichert, the data protection supervisor for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, which has also brought legal action against Facebook, said he supported the Austrian student group's efforts.

"Facebook's policy is much too vague and broad and does not conform with German or European law," Weichert said in an interview.